Do you have any idea what something like this could do to our county?'
'Without the legend of Brushy Bill Roberts, your town dies,' I said. 'That's a fact. And by covering up a murder investigation, it will do the same thing.'
'Who said anything about murder?' Waverly said. There was concern in his voice. It was trembling. He knew something.
'Whose remains were never found?'
'I don't have to talk to you?'
' Whose, Justice?'
'The son,' he gushed. 'William Henry. We found a piece of femur we believe was his, but…'
'But what?' I said.
'But we weren't sure. So we buried it.'
'You buried an empty coffin?'
'It wasn't empty!' Waverly said. 'There was a femur bone inside! Besides, the boy's body was nowhere. Either he died in that fire or he disappeared off the face of the earth. We figured his remains being too burnt up to find was a more likely scenario.'
'Only those remains turned up alive in New York, pulling the trigger of a Winchester rifle four times, killing four people.'
'Listen, Parker,' Waverly said. 'You don't know what it's like here. You don't know what this would mean to our township and its residents.'
There had to be something else going on. Hico stood to prosper hugely if it was revealed Brushy Bill Roberts was, in fact, Billy the Kid. Waverly was hiding something else.
'What was Pastor Rheingold doing in that fire?' I asked.
'Strange that he just happened to be at the Roberts home the night it goes up in flames.'
'Enough!' Waverly said. 'You got your damn story.
Rheingold has nothing to do with it. Goodbye, Mr. Parker. I hope you sleep well tonight.'
Waverly hung up. Sleep was the last thing I would find that night.
43
Mya stirred. Not because her body awoke naturally. Not because sunlight from the outside had forced it, or because she had to pee, or any other number of reasons why nature might interrupt one's slumber.
No, Mya awoke because of the knife point she felt digging into her side.
'Wake up, Mya,' he said. She opened her eyes, the lids dry and crusty. Her hands were still bound, her wrists hurt like hell. She hadn't been able to wipe the moisture or makeup away. The last thing she remembered was following this man back to his hotel room, having a drink, feeling his lips on hers, and then nothing. There was no other pain, and besides her bonds she was otherwise unharmed.
She was lying on the floor of some dingy hotel room. The bed was unmade. Ugly orange curtains dangled above her.
The rusty air conditioner rattled, spewing a warm breeze.
Under the bed she could see a small blue duffel bag, underwear and socks spilling out of it.
By the foot of the bed, Mya saw what appeared to be a gun. Not like the kind she saw in the movies. This one was long. The barrel seemed to have some kind of wood finish.
The boy noticed her staring and said, agreeing, 'She's a true thing of beauty.'
Mya tried to squirm but it was no use. Her energy was gone. And a blade was ticking her ribs. If she bucked in the wrong direction, it could…
'How you feeling?' he asked. Mya blinked. What was his name? He'd told it to her at the bar. Where he'd been charming, funny, handsome and sweet. Of course all of this was before he kidnapped her. 'Nod once for okay, nod twice for not okay.'
Mya nodded twice, vigorously. She remembered his hands on her, her whole body tingling, feeling alive. She remembered his hands, strong and gentle, but then all of a sudden perfunctory, like they were only waiting to…
And here she was.
'You're not getting me, Miss Loverne. Nod once if you're okay, as in not hurt. Nod twice if you are hurt. Forget about your hands. Can you walk?' Mya felt the blade dig in. She tried to cry out, but the tape prevented her from emitting anything but a pathetic whimper. She felt saliva coating the tape sealing her mouth.
She nodded once. That was all.
'You had me worried,' the boy said with a grin.
William. His name was William.
'We have a busy night ahead of us,' William said. 'Are you up for it?'
Her first instinct was to try and scream. Or at least nod twice. But the knife made its horrible presence felt once again and she tilted her chin down once. A single tear streaked down Mya's cheek. The boy wiped it away.
44
After leaving the office, I called Amanda. We hadn't spoken the whole day, mainly because I'd been swamped with Justice
Waverly, then presenting the information to Wallace, Evelyn and Jack. Then I began to prep the outline of a blockbuster story that would both force the reopening of the fire in Hico, but present new information proving that Billy the Kid had lived long after his alleged murder. It was too soon to claim that Athena Paradis's killer was Billy's great-grandson, or that
I thought he was. I knew it was true, but had to be able to convince others. Truth required proof, however, and since he was still at large the only proof was four silent corpses.
One thing was for certain, and Waverly had confirmed it, that William Henry Roberts was not among the victims who died in the fire.
So if William did not die in that fire, why was there no investigation into his whereabouts? Hamilton County police department came up empty, and they moved mighty quick to assume the body had simply 'burnt up.' Even I didn't think they would be that careless. At least not by accident.
Not a single newspaper report asked questions about the fire. They were too busy bemoaning the death of Mark Rheingold and four, less important, members of the Hico community. Everyone seemed more than happy to wash away any unpleasant memories and get on with their lives.
That brought up another question. What was Pastor Mark
Rheingold-a statewide institution, a man who made millions of dollars a year and had thousands of rabid followers-doing at the Roberts house the night of the fire? I searched every archive available but couldn't find anything linking Rheingold to the Roberts family. It was a pretty big coincidence that
Rheingold paid a house call the night a four-alarm blaze
Pinter, Jason – Henry Parker 02
The Guilty (2008) burned everything to the ground.
I dialed Amanda's line at work. It went right to voice mail.
'Hey, babe, it's me, I'm heading home now. You're probably still at work, just wanted to know if we should plan to have dinner together. Anyway, give me a call back. Love you.'
Click.
I needed a night to relax, unwind. Everything this past week had come so suddenly. All those deaths-deaths of people I knew. The NYPD was beside themselves at this point, and the newspapers hadn't pulled punches in their criticism. And though New York had arguably the finest police department in the country, it was also a city in which
